“You’re Eden Riley, right? Wow, it’s so exciting to meet a real psychic!”
Eden cringed and slowly turned to see a wide-eyed man with a receding hairline staring at her expectantly. She forced a smile. “That would be me.”
He beamed back at her. “I’m Constable Santos. I was sent ahead to keep you company until Detective Hanson arrives. He’s running a bit late.”
Since she’d been waiting a half hour already, she kind of figured that.
“I should probably warn you that the detective’s a bit of a skeptic. He’s not that big on adding psychics to the investigation.”
“Trust me, Constable, I’m used to that kind of attitude.”
He waved a hand. “Don’t let it bother you. You’ll just show him how insightful you are and make a believer out of him.”
Eden tried to hold on to her smile. “Fair enough.”
“So how does this work?” he asked.
“How does what work?”
“The psychic thing to solve our unsolved cases. Everyone’s still buzzing about what you did last month.”
Eden’s stomach twisted unpleasantly. Up until last month, and just before she’d moved to the city, she’d worked at Psychic Connexions, a phone-based service located two hours north of Toronto, meant for entertainment only — astrology readings, love life, and job advice. She had a talent for saying the right thing at the right time and keeping her customers happy enough to get them to be repeat callers.
She simply told people what they wanted to hear, helped by some mild insight and a knack for reading tarot cards. Everyone was happy.
But it didn’t mean she was really, truly psychic.
Little did she know that one of her regulars was Meredith Holt, the wife of Toronto’s current chief of police and a devout believer in All Things Mystical. She’d discovered Eden by accident (or fate, as she’d later relate the story) when her usual fortune-teller was away on vacation and she “got a hunch” to call the number advertised in the Entertainment section of the newspaper. Eden simply knew her as Merry, a lovely woman who always ended their daily twenty-minute sessions with a wish of “brightest blessings.”